Foundations of Network Storage, Lesson Five: What's Next?

Foundations of Network Storage: Lesson 5 of 5.

In this lesson, we will explore the storage technologies you can expect to see in the near future.

Looking ahead

Due to an increase in amount and types of information being created, as well as rules and regulations that require more and better retention of data, new storage technologies are quickly evolving. Existing tape and disk backup technologies are experiencing innovations that bring larger capacity and faster speed for storage. And every day, new technologies—such as magnetic RAM chips and holographic data storage—are starting to see the light of day as well.

While it is difficult to predict what the future holds in terms of storage, here are some of the most likely trends:

• The cost of storage will continue to fall
• Data storage needs will continue to grow
• Data security and integrity will become more and more important as more people conduct online transactions
• The types of data that need to be backed up will change. Where you now have spreadsheets, documents, and tables, you'll soon be seeing a need to store larger audio and video files.

What's next for Storage?

• The future of tape for data storage: the 1-TB cartridge and beyond
  This article from computer Technology Review discusses new advances in Virtual Tape solutions.
• IBM Magentic RAM (MRAM) Images
  Magnetic RAM chips use magnetic rather than electrical structures to store information, so they do not need to be constantly powered to retain data, like current RAM technologies. They are also much faster and less expensive to make than today's nonvolatile Flash memory. Read about it here.
• Magnitude 3D clustered storage
  The Navy wields a new and unlikely weapon in its arsenal of surface combat systems: a future-proof storage area network (SAN). Using Magnitude 3D storage clusters from Xiotech, the Navy's Surface Combat Systems Center (SCSC) lab can now adapt at combat speed to meet the technical needs of the crews that develop, tune, and deploy national defense technology.
• Sony Envisions Role of Paper in Optical Data Storage Future
  Sony and Toppan Printing have developed an optical disk that uses the next-generation Blu-ray Disc format and is constructed partially of paper. As much as 51 percent of the optical disk consists of paper, leading to benefits such as reduced manufacturing cost and easy labeling, disposal, and destruction.
• Holographic Data Storage: New Technology Meets Exponential Growth Needs
  Holographic Data Storage (HDS) is a technology that makes possible storage densities that exceed the barriers of traditional magnetic and optical recording. HDS has the capability to meet and exceed the expected storage demands well into the 21st century.
• Holographic data storage: An overview
  Innovations, developments, and new insights gained in the design and operation of working storage platforms, novel optical components and techniques, data coding and signal processing algorithms, systems tradeoffs, materials testing and tradeoffs, and photon-gated storage materials are summarized.

White Papers

• Enabling Tape Growth for the Future
  In this white paper, from Quantum Corporation, experts say to expect the capacity of tape cartridges to increase faster than disk drives for the foreseeable future. Automated tape will become more appealing for the rapidly growing archive, compliance, and fixed content applications as well as backup/recovery applications.
• Storage Systems Consolidation: The Next Generation
  This white paper by Technology Alignment Partners describes the emerging trend toward storage consolidation architectures and the cost reductions and service improvements they promise enterprise computing environments.

Course list

• Lesson 1: SAN
• Lesson 2: NAS
• Lesson 3: Fibre channel/iSCSI
• Lesson 4: Backup
• Lesson 5: What's next?

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